


Childhood Chums

by luckysilverbell



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckysilverbell/pseuds/luckysilverbell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the TURN kink meme.</p><p>Floofy scenes with Abe and Ben as childhood friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Church

They first met in church. 

Sort of, anyways. In a town like Setauket, everyone knew everything about everyone else. In hindsight, Abe was sure he’d met Ben Tallmadge at an earlier time, but it was their day at church that really stuck with him so many years later.

Reverend Tallmadge was a kind man. He would not deny that, but like all other adults in 7-year-old Abe Woodhull’s eyes, the man was dreadfully boring. Every Sunday, he would sit on the impossibly hard pews for what seemed like hours, listening to sermons and lectures on a book he’d heard in its entirety upwards of a hundred times. And the story never changed. Neither did the Sunday services. Sermons, lessons and lectures, peppered with intolerable bouts of silent prayer that seemed to last for an eternity.

It was during one of these extended silent prayers that Abe first noticed him. Him. The sandy-haired boy three rows up, glancing back at him. ’What?’ Abe mouthed, and Ben grinned. Both boys glanced at Abe’s father, then back at each other, smiling together this time. Ben pulled a twisted face like death, tongue lolling out the corner of his mouth, and eyes rolled back into his skull.

Abe couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped his lips, which he quickly disguised as a cough before his father could catch them at their game. He bowed his head again, in case his father thought to look, but less than a minute later, it became obvious that the older man hadn’t noticed. Abe risked a glance at Ben, whose smile stretched wide across his face, and eyes danced with silent laughter. Abe stuck out his own tongue in response, and though he felt it paled in comparison to the face Ben had pulled, it seemed to amuse the other boy endlessly. Abe was sure he’d heard a snicker moments before an older man thwacked Ben on the back of his head with a pew bible.

That seemed like the end of their fun, but not three minutes later, Ben had turned around in the pew once again and this time, he seemed to be chewing something. Abe cocked his head to the side and arched an eyebrow. Ben opened his mouth and waggled his tongue, a soggy wad of paper that could only have come from one of the bibles balanced on the tip. Abe’s mouth fell open in disbelief, but then Ben crossed his eyes and puffed his cheeks, and he couldn’t stop the laughter that was suddenly echoing throughout the too-quiet church.

He suddenly became aware of multiple sets of angry eyes fixed on himself and Ben. “I… I’m sorry…” Abe mumbled, cheeks flaming, but it was too late. 

His father stood up and had already began to lead him outside when Ben’s voice rang out behind them. “It wasn’t his fault!” he called out, and the church’s attention focused instead on the other boy. “God was telling us jokes! Wasn’t he, Abe? The one about the King, a pig and a Scot in a brothel, right?”

The only comfort Abe had that day was the knowledge that at least he wasn’t being punished alone.


	2. School

Abraham was a morning person. An absolute, bona-fide, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, sun-in-your-eyes morning person. Always had been, from the day he was born. It had never been a problem in the Woodhull house, as his father was an early riser himself, and felt the need to continuously force this trait on the rest of the family.  
  
Benjamin, on the other hand, was most certainly  _not_  a morning person in any way, shape or form. Every morning, the walk to school was exactly the same, with Abe all but skipping as he left his house to catch up with his friends, and Ben being practically thrown out the door by his mother. Anna would always meet them; she liked the other girls her age well enough, but she found the constant chatter about embroidery and tea and babies dull, and preferred to hear about fish and frogs and muskets, or whatever else the boys would be discussing. Caleb would regale her with stories he’d heard of far-off countries, giant sea creatures, and this  _thing_  he swore was lurking in the well behind the Tallmadge’s church.  
  
“That’s not true, is it, Ben?” Anna would ask every time, but it seemed to Abe that Ben was never fully awake before lunch.  
  
Ben rubbed his eyes as he stumbled along after his friends, murmuring something that vaguely sounded like a curse. “You know,” Caleb muttered one morning, “I bet we could walk into a lake, and he’d follow us in without even noticing.”  
  
The three glanced over their shoulders at Ben, who was exhausting the last of his motor functions simply by walking. “Let’s do it,” Anna said with a smirk.  
  
“Walk into a lake?” Abe repeated incredulously. “Right before school?”  
  
“Fine, we’ll push him off the dock,” Caleb replied. “Don’t look so guilty. It’ll wake him up.”  
  
Gradually, the three veered slightly off-course. As expected, Ben trudged along after them, seemingly unaware as the path changed from dirt, to grass, then to wood planks as they walked closer and closer to the water. He didn’t even notice when Abe, Anna and Caleb stopped walking and stood back to watch him.  
  
Another wave of exhaustion passed through the ill-fated boy, and he paused for a moment to yawn, taking in a large gulp of humid, early-morning air. “Smells like pond scum,” he mumbled.  
  
Realization dawned on Ben’s face a moment too late as his eyes shot open just in time to see the sudden absence of ground beneath his feet. He let out a rather undignified yelp as he scrambled to regain his balance, then plunged into the icy water with a shriek. Anna and Caleb’s laughs were the first thing he heard upon surfacing, apart from the sounds of himself spitting up a mouthful of scummy water and gulping for air. “You’re the devil!” he choked, and Caleb roared with laughter again.

“Here, take my hand.” Abe crouched down on his heels, extending his arm as far as he could without losing his balance. Their eyes met, and Ben hesitated. Just for a second, though, and then that playful gleam was back in those suddenly-awake eyes.  
  
“Don’t mind if I do.” Before he could withdraw, Ben’s dripping hand wrapped itself around Abe’s forearm and  _pulled_. Abe’s eye’s widened to almost comical proportions as his feet flew out from underneath him, and he tumbled head-over-heels onto Ben and into the water.  
  
When he finally surfaced, Ben was laughing. “Not so funny now, is it?” he taunted.  
  
“Why you--! I was trying to  _help_  you, you arse!” Abe spluttered, wiping the water out of his eyes.  
  
Ben laughed. “Call it returning the favor, then!” He dipped under the water as Abe hurled a fistful of mud in his direction.  
  
“That’s not funny, Ben!” Ben resurfaced slowly, eyes barely above the surface, and inched toward his friend. “What are you doing?” Ben didn’t reply, but the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly, and Abe knew he was smirking. “That’s far enough. Okay, get back.” Closer. Closer. “I mean it, Ben, Don’t you—“ Ben leapt forwards and caught Abe around the middle, knocking him back into the water. It was then that Abe noticed Ben’s cheeks. Puffed up from a mouthful of water. “You wouldn’t.”  
  
Abe shrieked as Ben spat his mouthful of pond water into his face, then took off running as fast as he could through the squelching mud and shallow water. “Oh, now you’ve done it!” Abe shouted, lobbing handfuls of mud after Ben’s retreating form. “Come back here!”  
  
When they finally arrived at school—two hours late and sopping wet, with mud on their clothes and pond scum in their hair—even spending the remainder of the day wearing the dunce cap couldn’t put a damper on Abe’s spirits. Especially with Ben sitting across the room from him, smiling and trying to catch his eye.


End file.
